Tropical wave to boost weekend rain chances

Thursday

A tropical wave approaching South Florida is expected to keep rain chances elevated through the weekend.

The National Weather Service puts precipitation probabilities at up to 50 percent through Saturday.

Slightly cooler temperatures have taken hold this week, however.

Tuesday’s high at PBIA was 85, the second straight day that the temperature failed to reach 90. The high was an even more comfortable 83 in Palm Beach after a low of 77.

Forecast highs in South Florida have edged down closer to normal, which means upper 80s. Don’t get your hopes up for any big changes, though.

“The next week looks more like summer than fall at this point.” forecasters at the National Weather Service said in their morning analysis from Miami. There is “no hint to a change in pattern over the next seven days that would suggest fall is anywhere close to southern Florida yet.”

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Tropical rains are headed to Arizona and New Mexico. (Credit: NWS-Tucson)

DELUGE IN THE DESERT: Southern Arizona is bracing for effects from Tropical Storm Newton, a storm that made landfall in Mexico as a hurricane. Tucson is under a flood watch and wind advisory, and forecasters are warning of wind gusts as high as 37 mph today.

Newton was forecast to hit Arizona as a tropical storm this afternoon and then move into New Mexico early Thursday as a post-tropical low.

ATLANTIC SLOW-DOWN: A tropical wave in the Caribbean has been taken off the National Hurricane Center outlook map, leaving just one system of concern in the Atlantic. Forecasters gave it a 70 percent chance of development over the next five days, but the system appears to be no threat to land.

This is the peak of the hurricane season, but waves have had trouble developing due to dry air, wind shear and high pressure.

“I don’t want to offend the Atlantic basin but it seems like the extremely active era is done,” the NHC’s Erik Blake said on Twitter Tuesday.